Pub Quiz

On Thursday, my second to last night in London, I finally partook in a British staple, the pub quiz. Usually one night a week, most pubs will hold team competitions with Jeopardy-like questions. Our rounds were music, words with "hell" in them, words that start with D, food items, and cars. Each team writes down their answers, and for each correct answer, your team gets a point. The pub we visited gave prizes to the first two winning teams and the team with the least correct answers. Unfortunately, we came in third place out of about six teams.

I went with a friend's uncle and his friends. Instead of having an awkward dinner, the pub quiz was a great way to meet these new people. Of course, food and beer flow smoothly throughout the entire affair so it's quite social even though it's nerdy. By the end, a couple old ladies were loudly insisting that the description "spherical granules made by rolling semolina wheat and coating it with wheat flour" applied to dough balls instead of couscous, which was the correct answer. The host promptly told them to shut up.

For the third round, you were given pictures and had to find the word that started with D and that matched the picture. From a picture of a strip pole, a dancer, and a merry-go-round horse, you were supposed to surmise Christina Aguilera in the music video, Dirrty. I'm proud to say that our team did not get that one right. From a picture of the Ten Commandments, you were supposed to reach decalogue. We used someone's iPhone to get that one (I promise, we only cheated on two questions).

For the fourth round, you were given a glass of wine and five samples of food. For the wine, you had to figure out the country of origin and the grape. None of us are wine connoisseurs so the grape was out of question, but we somehow guessed the right country, South Africa. For the samples of food, you had to figure out the main ingredients. I didn't try any of the food for fear of it being non-vegetarian. I'm glad I didn't; one of the samples was goose fat.

Overall, the pub quiz was a lot of fun. I wish they had a similar activity in the States, but it would never work out, especially with the different cultural attitudes about alcohol and its place in the community. It would make a good double date or a small group activity. However, if you do want to go in the UK, you can walk into a pub quiz on the designated night; there's no need to reserve tables, although there were regulars at our pub who had their tables and their game ready (Yes, they won).